Author's Note: Hello! Me again here starting yet another chappie. I just posted the previous chapter like a few minutes ago and now I'm here writing the next chapter...hopefully I get to post it today too. Anyways, read on & let me know what you think, alright?

Disclaimer: I must've written this numerous times as it is and you know what? NOT MINE!!!

Summary: Ginny Weasley received the shocker of a lifetime when she entered her sixth year at Hogwarts. She fell in love with the last person on earth she thought she'd fall for. Now she has to do everything in her power to grab his attention and make him hers--even if she have to face the wrath of her six brothers and her parents, not to mention the wrath of Hermione and Harry when they find out what she was planning to do.

Setting: Ginny is in her 6th year; Draco is in his 7th year

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XXIV. Forged Alliance

"You have got to talk to her, you prat. That's the only way you're going to be able to settle this out with her having to have both our necks served up on a silver platter!" Hermione hissed her companion inside the library. They were hidden between two large shelves near the back of the room where hardly anybody passes by so they were safe from prying eyes.

"And what do you want me to tell her, huh?" whined Draco, looking so miserable it was unbelievable how, just a few weeks ago, he was so cool and composed and ready to duke it out with Ginny, but now he was cast away like some hapless stray looking for shelter.

"The truth, what else?" Hermione was soon getting impatient with Draco's stubbornness. In the days that followed after she slapped some sense into him, she noticed a conceivable change in the proud Slytherin. After she berated him for acting like some damned prat around Ginny, hurting her the way he did without actually talking to her, confronting her about it, she witnessed Draco Malfoy's icy demeanor shatter right before her very eyes. From then on a friendship was forged between them. She became Draco Malfoy's secret ally. He told her exactly what he saw that night down to the very last detail. He neither admit nor deny his love for Ginny, but Hermione doesn't need a genius to know that like her friend, he too has fallen in love.

Secretly they met at this exact same spot in the library to update each other on their findings, and mostly for Draco to watch Ginny to his heart's content. Hermione felt sorry for him for loving her friend from afar, but like Ginny, Draco Malfoy was a proud person; he knew he was at the right and there was nothing anybody could do to make him change his mind. Harry and Ron were starting to question her about her nightly visit to the library, stating that she could do her studying with the rest of them inside the common room, but she often gave them some lame-ass excuse then off she went to meet with Draco and plan out his next move to get Ginny to start talking to him again.

"What truth?" he asked stubbornly, jutting his aristocratic chin high into the air.

Hermione rolled her dark brown eyes and shook her bushy head.

"Don't be too thick, Malfoy." she scolded, "You know what truth I'm talking about. Tell her exactly what you told me, about that night when you walked in on her and Harry's conversation."

"Then what?"

"Then listen to what she has to say about that! You can't just jump into your own conclusions, you know?" (a/n: she should be telling this to Ginny too, don't you think so? :::laughs:::)

"Easier said than done, Granger, easier said than done." he mused and slunk back against an old, dusty bookshelf, his arms crossed firmly over his chest.

Hermione watched her newfound friend face defeat without even trying first.

~*~

"Arrr! Look at them!" Ginny jabbed her index finger at the direction of Hermione and Draco's little nook at the back of the library, annoyance covering her face and she angrily averted her gaze from the cozy couple, "Why can't they just come out and admit it that they are indeed together instead of having to hide it from us?" she asked her companion with annoyance evident in her facial expression and in her tone.

"Maybe they're just talking, Gin. There's nothing wrong with that." Harry argued, casting a confused look over at the small corner near the very back of the library where Malfoy and Hermione were hidden.

"Since when did the likes of Draco Malfoy have a civilized conversation with the likes of Hermione Granger, huh?" she questioned.

She had a point there, but still, if Draco Malfoy found it in his heart and in his mind to associate himself with Ginny, why couldn't he associate himself with a Muggle-born like Hermione?

"Things change, Gin." he said simply then gathered his belongs off the desk they were using and got up, "Now I think it's time we best be on our way back to our tower. It's getting late and the library should be closing soon."

"But I haven't finished my homework yet!" she exclaimed, looking down at her open Charms book and the blank piece of parchment beside it.

"Well if you paid more attention to your homework instead of watching Malfoy and Hermione, you would've had it done by now."

"Oh, stuff it, Potter." she hissed and irately closed her Charms book with a loud thud, gathered all her belongings and stuffed them inside her knapsack.

"Ready?" Harry asked when she looked like she had everything tucked away.

Ginny took one last cursory glance at the now empty desk then down at her open knapsack. Everything she needed seemed to be in there so she zipped it up and pushed back her chair. "Yeah, I'm ready." she nodded and looped her arm with Harry's as they both walked out of the library with Ginny's red head resting against the Boy-Who-Lived's arm.

~*~

"Dammit, look at them!" Draco's gray eyes were shooting daggers at the back of the retreating redhead girl and dark haired boy. "Look at that and tell me they're not a couple!" he jabbed an accusing finger at the direction of Harry and Ginny when he noticed them vacating their table.

Hermione did look closer and watched. From where she was the scene before her could've easily fooled her into believing that Harry and Ginny were more than just good friends, but he knew them better than anyway. Harry may like Ginny, but there was no way he would look at her as more than a sister; he was how he had been treating her over the past seven years since meeting the Weasleys. But then things change, and who knows what Harry and Ginny's true relationship was. Even she was as intrigued as Draco was to find out exactly what kind of a a friendship Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley have!

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to be continued...

A/N: a little too short and looks like this is just a filler chapter, but I feel compelled to insert this in. I wanted to explain why Hermione was somehow cajoling Draco in the previous chapter to talk to Ginny knowing how much Draco hated a mudblood. This chapter somehow explained what happened between Draco and Hermione after she slapped some sense to him in chapter 22. I think I have an idea as to how to go on about with this story without making the plot seem like it's been overly used--just lemme know if it's starting to become too clichéd and I'll see if I can steer it away from that direction, alright?